


A Monster's Dream

by Adaney



Category: Original Work
Genre: POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:53:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adaney/pseuds/Adaney
Summary: It started with jobs in the Midwest; disposing of things, people, things that weren't quite people. Ducking between alleyways and avoiding anyone that had any inkling I was coming for their lives.





	A Monster's Dream

It started with jobs in the Midwest; disposing of things, people, things that weren't quite people. Ducking between alleyways and avoiding anyone that had any inkling I was coming for their lives.

_Dropping bodies off in industrial bins, hiding in the shadows as people drift through the alleys. Another successful job. Nearly caught._

  
  


A job went bad, so I left.

_Running, feet slapping against the concrete as I race for the exit. Everything I am spills onto the street, metaphorically speaking. None of these people know who I am. I plan to keep it that way._

I change my face.

I get a job driving. I end up in the country on my last job at my last stop.

_I thought about seeing family. Going a hundred miles past that exit never felt so satisfying. My stop's a decent place. A mixture of concrete and wood, quaint shops and the same people you'd find anywhere else. But, like all places, these people've got problems._

_I stopped for a bite. I'd_ meant _to get back on the road, but like all the places before it, this place's problems have become my problems. I was waiting in line at some fast food restaurant, swiping though my phone to look at their menu because the one on display was purely cropped._

_Some guy is blabbering, incensed, like his soul’s been wrenched out or something. Turns out his dog got snatched. All he can talk about is how_ they _took it. A gut feeling tells me I'm returning to old work sooner than expected._

_I sidle up to the man and his friends, two girls._ "Listen." _Words are falling from my lips before I know it. I hold up three fingers and plant my other hand on the table, prepared to make demands in three. I don't bother listing them off._ "Pay for my meal and I might find your dog." 

_He pulled his hands out of his hair and surged up with new hope and wound his way around his table._ "What're you gonna do, Mister ███"

"Miss ██," _I corrected, trailing after him so I could watch him pay for my food._ "I'm going to find your dog."

_I end up fed with another job to do and not a lot of time to do it. I told him I could search for the damn dog, and I could, but things weren't… working. I could_ feel _the connection, the innate music or_ something _that souls were supposed to have, but I kept getting interference. I kept getting pushed into feeling by other people. A woman looking at me through mesh in a door, almost like bars. Trapped. No point recounting the rest. That feeling was the same. That trapped feeling was the ticket to wherever this dog was, but I didn't tell the man that._

_I made my way into the night once the sun went down and let my feet touch still cooling asphalt. I'd been bothered by a feeling since I'd come here. Maybe it took the dog. What would I know? All I knew was the short scraps I had in dreams were nothing. Tonight I needed to become two._

_Tapping into the other part of myself wasn't painful. It sure felt like_ cheating _though. The orange blobby representation of power spilled forth and enveloped me, transforming my limbs and creating new ones. Technically speaking I was unchanged. If you looked hard enough you'd still see me. Probably._

_I took flight on two ethereal wings and let a flare of my power burst into the sky. The flare I got back weren't the dog's captor's. Unfortunate, but you learn to take punches in this line of work. There's no good allegory or descriptor for the weird things that attack me and other people._

_I can tell you the one I fought looked like the void, that it had wings like a bat and looked like an unfinished painting. It won't matter one bit without the ability to see them. The fight is narrow even with my borrowed power and the thing tries to bust out of its chains as I banish it, stuffing it_ somewhere _that isn't here. Gone._

So much for a final stop.

_I land, folding that billowing glowing power into me until it's just an ember, a guiding light to direct my flight_ home _. You should already know that's not what happened. I saw_ him. _A boy with a cap pulled over his eyes and a flame of his own. With all my wisdom I decide not to parley, backing away from his neck of the woods and his broken tin soldiers (animated corpses? there were too many to be townspeople alone)._

_He calls after me, eyes following me through the fabric of his cap. If I remembered what he said I'd tell you. Wasn't hostile. Wasn't even_ unkind. _Hot me thinking maybe, just maybe, I could lead them. Teach them a thing or two. Make them_ useful.

_Not tonight. I flew my sorry carcass back_ home _and spoke with the group who'd become my companions over the last two months. They were unimpressed with my progress, rightfully so._

"You've been looking for two months now," _said the girl with auburn hair. The man and the other girl were silent, presumably because they were thinking the same thing. I was making_ progress _. You couldn't rush things like this._

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a dream I had, translated with the intention of turning it into something larger. Maybe later though.


End file.
